U.S. security policy addresses three broad priorities: peacekeeping and the prevention of additional conflicts, strengthening the security sector in partner states, and countering terrorism and other transnational threats.

U.S. security assistance still comprises a small percentage of overall U.S. foreign aid to Africa, but both have grown considerably. For historical context – in FY1985, security assistance for Africa was $168M, or about 17% of all U.S. aid for Africa at that time. By CRS calculations, security assistance for Africa in FY14 was approximately $800M (~$500M provided through State Department funds and ~$300M under DOD authorities), representing approximately 10% of the aid total for Africa.

Between FY10 and FY14, Department of Defense-appropriated security assistance represented 29% of U.S. security assistance to Africa. These Title 10 security cooperation funds totaled $53.7M in FY10 and $379.6M in FY14.

The increase in DoD (Title 10) funds in Africa has been tied to increased efforts to build African counterterrorism capacity through East Africa and Yemen Counterterrorism (1203), Global Train and Equip (1206 and 2282), and Global Security Contingency Fund (1207) authorities.

Relative to FY14, the Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund (CTPF), announced by President Obama at West Point last May, could represent a doubling of U.S. security assistance spending in Africa, and DoD’s FY16 budget request for CTPF would dwarf State Department-administered funds for the region – if funds requested in FY16 are appropriated and obligated as the Administration has proposed.

DoD’s FY16 budget request for CTPF includes approximately $1.27B (out of a global request of more than $2.1B) for East Africa, the Lake Chad Basin, and the Sahel/Maghreb, building on planned DoD CTPF funding of more than $460M for these areas in FY15.

For many years, there’s been chatter about the U.S. military “ramping up” in Africa or some sort of “Africa Pivot” (a play on the “Asia Pivot” that was discussed earlier in the Obama Administration). In my opinion, the notion of an “Africa Pivot” ignores the reality that the continent still ranks relatively low in the global context of U.S. national security priorities. Regardless, the initiatives being developed and implemented are the biggest expansion of U.S. security assistance in Africa since the standup of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) in 2007/2008. The budget numbers show that while U.S. security assistance to Africa is increasing, it’s still a relatively small percentage of total U.S. assistance to Africa (10% in FY14, compared with 17% in FY1985). The increase in spending is tied to DoD (Title 10) programs that are focused on countering terrorism, which far outpaces State Department funding for non-military security assistance to law enforcement, border security, and criminal justice – as mentioned in the testimonies. I’d be interested to see how these percentages shake out once FY16 funds are appropriated and obligated, and whether this increase in security assistance to Africa – particularly for DoD – will continue into the next Administration. More importantly, I’d be interested to see how this expanded DoD security assistance will be monitored and evaluated, and how those results will contribute to the debate on whether the type of security assistance the U.S. offers “works.” (My thoughts on that here; the gist is that counterterrorism assistance is necessary, but insufficient to contribute to stability.)

In closing, I’d like to recommend Lauren Ploch Blanchard’s testimony as a valuable source on U.S. security assistance in Africa. Her testimony gives the historical context of such assistance, links it to evolving strategic guidance, fleshes out the various security assistance accounts, authorities, and programs, and previews the Administration’s FY16 budget request as it relates to security assistance in Africa. This is the (insert culturally appropriate religious text) of security assistance in Africa.

Last week, Nigeria announced the creation of an Army Special Operations Command (NASOC) at a Counter-Terrorism and Counter-Insurgency Lessons Learned Exchange between the United States and Nigeria. I’d been tracking developments with regard to bilateral security cooperation and had heard about the creation of NASOC when I was in Nigeria last summer, which is why this announcement piqued my interest. According to the Nigerian Army’s Chief of Transformation and Innovation, NASOC would be a “low density high level strategic utility force capable of conducting direct action at low visibility operations. NASOC operation will be governed by precision of conduct, accuracy timely, speed and execution, surprise to keep any adversary off balance while in special operations.” (I’m not gonna lie – I have no clue what this quote actually means, but I digress.)

The announcement of the NASOC preceded President Goodluck Jonathan’s sacking of some of his Chiefs of Defence (the equivalent of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the United States) a few days later. As part of this reshuffle, former Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Alex Badeh, took over from Admiral Ola Sa’ad Ibrahim as Chief of Defence Staff (position equivalent to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the U.S.), Air Vice Marshal Adesola Nunayon Amosu took over for Badeh as Chief of Air Staff (position equivalent to the Air Force Chief of Staff in the U.S.), Major General Kenneth Tobiah Jacob Minimah took over for Lieutenant General Azubike O. Ihejirika as Chief of Army Staff (position equivalent to the Army Chief of Staff in the U.S.), and Rear Admiral Usman O. Jibrin took over from Vice Admiral Dele Joseph Ezeoba as Chief of Naval Staff (position equivalent to the Chief of Naval Operations in the U.S.). Air Marshal Badeh, the new Chief of Defence Staff, hails from Adamawa state, which is one of three Nigerian states (the others being Borno and Yobe states) in which President Jonathan had declared a Boko Haram-related state of emergency that is set to expire in April 2014, unless it is renewed for a second time. At the moment, I do not know what, if any correlation there is between the Chiefs of Defence reshuffle and the establishment of NASOC to counter the Boko Haram insurgency.

Through U.S Africa Command (AFRICOM), U.S. Special Operations Command, Africa (SOCAFRICA), and the Office of Security Cooperation in the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, the United States will be helping stand up the NASOC by providing training and a limited amount of equipment. From the information I have, it sounds like NASOC will have a force up North to deal with Boko Haram, a force in the South to deal with security in the Niger Delta, a Headquarters force to focus on hostage rescue, and an expeditionary force for external use – perhaps to contribute specialized capabilities for peacekeeping operations. Unfortunately, I don’t know the precise size of NASOC or of its component forces.

One reason U.S. support to establish NASOC is significant is that I have not gotten the sense that the U.S. military had as strong service-to-service relations with the Nigerian military as it would like, and working with them to establish NASOC provides opportunities to strengthen the army-to-army relationship. In addition, as a new command, NASOC will need to create military units from scratch, which avoids some of the tensions surrounding Leahy vetting that have impeded bilateral security cooperation as a result of the Nigerian government’s heavy-handed approach to Boko Haram in the North. (The Leahy Amendment requires that partner nation military units that receive U.S. security assistance are vetted to ensure that they have not been implicated in gross human rights violations.) Just to give you an example of the extent to which allegations of human rights violations by the Nigerian military had recently affected Leahy vetting:

One of the ways the United States provides security assistance to Nigeria and other countries on the African continent is through Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance (ACOTA), which trains partner nation militaries to participate in peacekeeping operations. You may recall that during the first six months of 2013, Nigeria contributed approximately 1/6 of the troops to the African-led International Support Mission to Mali (AFISMA) before they had to withdraw most of their troops in July. These troops likely received ACOTA training prior to their deployment. In April, Human Rights Watch published satellite imagery from the town of Baga in Borno State, showing 2,275 destroyed and 125 severely damaged buildings, and asking the Nigerian government to investigate allegations that soldiers carried out widespread destruction and killing in the town. Although the Baga incident was just one of many allegations of human rights violations by the Nigerian military in its fight against Boko Haram, my understanding is that most military units rotate personnel through northern Nigeria, and as a result, Nigerian military units were becoming tainted by association as far as Leahy vetting goes. As a result, Nigeria’s domestic handling of Boko Haram was raising questions over whether the United States would be able to support Nigerian troop contributions to Mali and other peacekeeping missions.

Thus to bring us back to the establishment of NASOC and the U.S. military’s support for this effort – will the newly-created “clean” NASOC units be able to avoid the human rights violations that have restricted the space for U.S. military engagement with their non-special forces counterparts?

Like this:

This is a month overdue, but in case you missed it, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield and Commander, U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) General David Rodriguez held an online press conference on U.S. Foreign Policy and Security Cooperation in Sub-Saharan Africa. You can find a video with closed captioning on YouTube and remarks on the State Department’s website. U.S. Embassies in Ethiopia, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia held watch parties and sent in questions for Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield and General Rodriguez to answer. I also tuned in and submitted a question on how the Presidential Policy Directive (PPD) 23 on Security Sector Assistance, announced in April 2013, would affect security assistance in the AFRICOM Area of Responsibility (AoR). In my opinion, PPD-23 had gone under the radar for several months, and I was genuinely interested in how the policy directive may or may not be influencing the evolution of U.S. security assistance in Africa. Oddly enough, it was the only question from the chat room that wasn’t answered during the session.

Anyway, if you look at the wording of PPD-23, it seems rather straightforward and, to be quite honest, mundane. According to PPD-23, the principal goals of U.S. security sector assistance are to:

Promote partner support for U.S. interests, through cooperation on national, regional, and global priorities.

Promote universal values, such as good governance, transparent and accountable oversight of security forces, rule of law, transparency, accountability, delivery of fair and effective justice, and respect for human rights.

Foster United States Government policy coherence and interagency collaboration.

Build sustainable capacity through comprehensive sector strategies.

Be more selective and use resources for the greatest impact.

Be responsive to urgent crises, emergent opportunities, and changes in partner security environments.

Ensure that short-term interventions are consistent with long term goals.

Inform policy with rigorous analysis, assessments, and evaluations.

Analyze, plan, and act regionally.

Coordinate with other donors.

But going back to my earlier comment about the PPD being mundane, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that what the PPD says isn’t as significant as what the PPD represents – a high-level forcing mechanism to 1) improve the way in which U.S. government agencies provide foreign (security) assistance and 2) clarify and expand upon what the government understands to be “security sector assistance.”

For example, on the first point, interagency and international donor coordination have always been implied when it comes to security assistance. Yet, the fact that there’s a high-level policy directive spelling out why this is important and in what sectors coordination should take place serves to force (or more realistically, will) this cooperation to improve.

On the second point, PPD-23 emphasizes that building partner nation capacity in the public safety, security, and justice sectors remains an area of focus to the Administration. You can see previous references to building partner capacity in the 2010 National Security Strategy under “Invest in the Capacity of Strong and Capable Partners.” However, note the expanded reference to the sectors the U.S. seeks to develop according to PPD-23: ” Security sector actors include state security and law enforcement providers, governmental security and justice management and oversight bodies, civil society, institutions responsible for border management, customs and civil emergencies, and non-state justice and security providers.” I have always believed that the 2010 NSS expands the concept of “security” when compared with previous National Security Strategies. Now, when compared with the 2010 NSS, it appears that PPD-23 has expanded the concept of Security Sector Assistance.

In any event, I look forward to seeing what any of this means for U.S. security assistance in Africa – if anything at all.